


New Love Cassette

by commanderdameron



Category: We Can Be Heroes (2020)
Genre: Other, Pre-Canon, Reader-Insert, gender neutral reader
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-13
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-21 12:47:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30021993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/commanderdameron/pseuds/commanderdameron
Summary: You’ve been with the Heroics for a little under a week when you meet Marcus Moreno for the first time.
Relationships: Marcus Moreno/Reader
Comments: 6
Kudos: 16





	New Love Cassette

You’ve been with the Heroics for a little under a week when you meet Marcus Moreno for the first time.

He’s come up in _conversation_ plenty—everyone from the security guard who gets you set up with a temporary ID, to the programmer who walks you through the organization’s encrypted log-in procedure, seems to have something to say about him. And seems eager to find an excuse to say it.

But frankly, as much as everyone claims to _adore_ him, it’s all just sounded a little too good to be true. You’ve temped in plenty of gigs while looking for a nice full-time job like this, and you’ve seen how office culture works. Maybe the Heroics are a little different than anything you’ve done before – any _saving the world_ at your old jobs was strictly metaphorical – but the headquarters _remains_ , in essence, an office. If _no_ coworkers can find anything bad to say about someone, some of them are lying. Period. No one is universally loved.

“Excuse me, would you mind some company?”

When you look up to see him towering over you – shining eyes and soft smile and what was that about him being universally loved? because perhaps you can kind of see it – your mouth goes dry. Feeling more than a little stupid, you shake your head: “No, go-- go ahead.” Gesturing to the empty seats across from you as you speak.

Smile grows a bit wider, and he looks back behind him toward the salad bar. “Miracle Guy! I’ll be here.”

Marcus Moreno _and_ Miracle Guy, sitting down to eat with you?

It’s not that you’d intended to eat lunch alone. In fact, this is the only time you haven’t come to the cafeteria with at least one or two other folks from your division, but you made it to the lab a bit late, which meant you ended up taking lunch later, too. Watching them all duck out earlier, you’d felt self-conscious about it—not the eating alone, but the idea that other people might interpret your aloneness as something that you didn’t want. Something to be corrected.

 _Marcus Moreno_ grabs a handful of napkins from the nearby dispenser, settles in over his food, and holds your gaze quite seriously. “You’re the new engineer, aren’t you?”

And alright, you’re a little taken aback. “Yeah, I am. How—”

“Saw you with a few of them the other day and I knew they were hiring, so I made the leap. I usually try to be better about introducing myself to the new recruits, but—”

“But he’s _crazy_ busy,” Miracle Guy informs you, plopping down beside Marcus. “Being the most important member of the Heroics is hard work, isn’t it, buddy? Can’t make any time for the little people anymore.”

You glance between them a bit nervously until you process Marcus’s expression, which is somewhere on the border of amused and exasperated. Alright, you can laugh… and you do, because Marcus has gotten a little flushed with the _most important member_ attribution. “— _but_ it seemed like you were having some important time as a team. And that sort of thing’s really important to the Heroics.”

Teamwork. That was one of the things that drew you to the organization in the first place. Collaborative saving the world… What could be better?

Which you say, in a way. “Thank you.”

Miracle Guy leans his elbows on the table as he asks what brought you to the Heroics, and you answer—conscious, all the while, of Marcus’s attentiveness.

Did he sit down out of concern for your aloneness?

No, you don’t quite think so.

Perhaps people aren’t lying, when they say they really love him.

* * *

The Heroics squashed a Mr. Freeze-wannabe and acquired a freeze ray in their last saving the world venture. All very exciting when you got to work the next morning to discover it at your work station—it would be your job to pick this thing apart?

Until you were tasked with using the technology to refine the headquarters’ temperature regulation. Much less exciting.

Now, you’ve been fussing with the tech for what feels like an eternity. You’ve kept some late nights in the lab, taken shorter lunches, and it hasn’t been enough. You’ve even asked for a few extra sets of eyes – _that sort of thing’s really important to the Heroics_ – but nothing useful. Nothing you hadn’t thought of already. You can _feel_ it, how close you are… but nothing useful.

This morning, your supervisor suggested that you might just need a change of scenery, which had sounded absurd in the moment. The ray is as big as your leg; not exactly practical for lugging around headquarters just because you want to mix things up.

But now it’s nearly 7 o’clock, and you’re exasperated and alone in the lab, so with your supervisor’s words ringing in your ears, you transfer the ray’s schematics from your computer to your datapad and retreat to go find some coffee. The kiosk near the entrance has long since shut down for the evening, but you know there’s a decent 24-hour diner within walking distance.

(You might have come upon it last week when you looked at your watch and suddenly realized it was 1am and you had yet to eat dinner.)

“Please tell me you’re heading home.”

Marcus’s voice echoes through the empty great hall, making you jump. He’s reached the entranceway from a different corridor that you know leads to the command center – although you’ve never been there – and the two of you converge on the shuttle almost simultaneously.

“Would you prefer reassurance or honesty?” you ask, rather than blurting out what you feel is the most pressing question: what is _he_ still doing at work? Surely his little girl is missing him by now.

“I’d prefer that our engineers not run themselves ragged to keep this place running,” he tells you softly. You grimace at these words, because you know what’s coming next; you had to reach out to him earlier this week for clearance on a few tests that _might_ have _potentially_ caused… a few million dollars of damage to headquarters.

(They _didn’t_ , so it was fine.)

So he knows very well what you’ve been working on. “Is this still about that freeze ray?” he asks. Beckoning for you to board the shuttle before him when it pulls in.

Begrudgingly, you nod. “I swear I’m _inches_ from getting the tech all sorted out.”

“Isn’t that what you told me on Monday?”

Marcus’s tone is teasing enough, you think, that you don’t really feel a need to answer. You sit down across from him and grimace at your lap, and it’s enough for now. Enough that, cautiously, you ask, “What’s kept you here so late?”

“Oh, you know.” He shrugs vaguely, and for a split second, you’re nervous that he thinks you’re prying. But then there are his eyes, gentle as he peers at you through his glasses. “The problem with retiring from the field is that suddenly you’re expected to offer _the hero’s perspective_ in all the administrative work. I just spent the past three hours reading over the latest draft of our new contract with the president.”

You frown, taken aback by the idea that superheroes keep a _contract_ with the president. It is far from the first disillusioning thing about coming to work for the Heroics, but it might be the most jarring. “That sounds awful.”

He hums. “Luckily, Missy and I have a deal that I can take one late night a week, so it wasn’t too much of a problem.”

 _Missy_. So much affection saturates his voice the moment he mentions her; it’s sickly sweet and tender, and you don’t really mind. There’s something _about_ that tenderness that gets to you, makes you admit that you think, “That’s really sweet.”

Shuttle pulls to a stop, both of your bodies following the sway of the vehicle for an instant while Marcus smiles at you. “She’s my world, so I kinda feel like it’s my job to follow her rules.”

“Noble,” you agree, offering up your own smile.

The parking lot is in one direction, but town, and the diner along with it, is in another, and even though he doesn’t know where you’re heading, it seems that he suspects you’re moving on foot because he stills outside of the shuttle without any word from you.

And then he tilts his head at you and asks, “Al’s?”

You don’t need to feign surprise now. “How’d you know?”

He laughs, a soft, warm laugh. The sound rushes through you, exquisite. “I’ve had my workaholic moments while I’ve been with the Heroics. Would you have a jelly donut on me? They’re my favorite.”

“Absolutely.”

* * *

On precisely one other occasion, you’ve seen Marcus as wound up as he is right now. And both times, it’s his mother who’s really gotten on his nerves.

Both times, you’ve gone to the storage room looking for materials for models and stumbled upon him in there. Toying with scraps of metal, contorting and twisting them with his powers while muttering to himself.

The first time, he apologized. Gave some mumbled explanation about how it’s always a little unnerving when his mom comes to headquarters, and then he cleared out.

Now, he sits on the floor against the far wall, scowling at the metal that’s floating a few inches between his hands while he seemingly focuses all of his attention on toying with the scrap. _Seemingly_ because you’re on the brink of announcing yourself when you could swear he murmurs your name.

Before you can ask for clarification, Marcus raises his voice. “Hi, sorry. Could… could you just shut the door while you get what you need?”

Perhaps it would be within the realm of _fair game_ to ask him to elaborate, but you think you get it. The steady buzz of activity in the Heroics’ headquarters isn’t exactly conducive to moping. You shut the door.

The room _is_ larger than a closet, but not by much—you have to step around him to reach the shelves you need, and there’s no real way for you to ignore the fact that you are both in there together. That Marcus Moreno, leader of the Heroics, is hiding from the world at your feet.

He hesitates, but he doesn’t leave it unspoken, thank God. “My mom tried to tell me how to parent Missy. In the middle of a training session with the rest of the Heroics.”

“Oh, shit,” you say, at a loss for anything more immediately meaningful. But you flinch just slightly at your own words. Did that sound too unprofessional?

Admittedly, you are – as already stated – standing in a storage room, talking to Marcus Moreno as he stews over his feelings. _Professional_ might be more than a little bit nebulous. And it seems that Marcus is ultimately unfazed; he sniffs and you’re almost positive that it’s meant to be a laugh. “Yeah, that about covers it.”

“Do you… want to talk about it?” you offer.

Marcus groans, and you hear a soft thud. Glancing down, you see that he’s hit his head against the wall behind him; now he’s looking up at the ceiling with a grimace. “Missy doesn’t have powers.”

Ah.

You’ve heard whispers of something to that effect. _Does anyone else feel like_ and _isn’t it a little weird that_ are not _common_ mantras around headquarters, but people still ask about it. The leader of the resistance having a _normal_ kid. And you’ve been curious, too, albeit not for the same reason as everyone else (the whole _how_ and _why_ of it all). It’s just… maybe you and Marcus aren’t _close_ , but you feel like you’ve gotten to know him pretty well. You can’t imagine why it would matter to him in the slightest whether Missy has powers.

It seems that he knows there’s at least a chance that you’re wondering about exactly that, because he elaborates before you can reply. “It wasn’t… we weren’t arguing _about_ Missy not having powers. I couldn’t care less about that, she’s the coolest kid in the world no matter what.”

You smile to yourself at these words, although you’re picking through a box of screws and don’t want to look at him and risk losing track of your place. “I’m sure that’s true.”

“But my mom thinks she should be in school here, with the rest of the kids of the Heroics. She’s brought it up plenty, but doing it while I’m at _work_ …” Marcus groans loudly, and when he continues talking, you’re pretty sure that he’s not really explaining to you anymore. “Like I don’t spend every free moment worrying about how my baby girl will feel out of place _anywhere_ I put her, and I have her in a school with the normal kids because that’s what she fucking _asked_ me for—”

There’s a sudden clanking noise that makes you jump, and now you do look down. Marcus has contorted the metal he’s been playing with into a crumpled ball, and from his bewildered expression, you don’t think it was on purpose.

“I’m sorry,” he tells you then. “You just came in here trying to do your job and I’m…”

“Doing exactly what I asked you to and talking about it?”

Finally, Marcus meets your eye. A hint of tension lingers in his brow, but when he offers you a smile, it feels quite sincere. “I guess that’s true.” After a moment’s hesitation, he rises to his feet, making you newly aware of the tight quarters you’re in. He’s not too close, but he’s… he’s pretty damn close. “Do you have a favorite animal?”

A favorite _animal_? “What?”

He holds up the metal ball. “For this. Anything you want, like a balloon animal but fancier. Missy really likes them.” As he explains it, Marcus’s smile fades just slightly, as though second-guessing whether you’ll even like the offer.

“Oh, that’s… really cool, Marcus,” you tell him softly. You hesitate, looking between his face and the ball. “Can I make an alternate suggestion?”

“What’s that?”

You reach out and settle your fingers on the ball. You don’t even need to ask; he allows you to pluck it out of his hand unquestioningly. “I’ll just take it like this, with all of that bad stuff you were feeling poured into it. And then you can go clear things up with your mom.”

For a moment, it seems you’ve rendered Marcus speechless. And even when he finds words, all he says is, “Thank you.”

* * *

It’s Marcus’s birthday, and as is the case for all of the heroes on their birthdays, operations at headquarters shut down early to celebrate. The festivities are mainly focused in the great hall, though everyone inevitably spills out into the connecting corridors and several other rooms in the facility. There’s food, and cake, and singing, as well as the inevitable moment when the rest of the Heroics embarrass Marcus by gushing over all of his greatest accomplishments as a hero.

And it’s a _good_ time. You laugh along with your co-workers over how flustered he is. You chat with Crimson Legend and Red Lightning Fury for a _while_ about the new weather altering device that you’ve been working on to augment their powers. You eat so, _so_ much, not least of which because Anita Moreno is hovering near the food table and keeps encouraging you to take more.

But every time you look around to see where Marcus is, he’s absorbed in rapt conversation with someone or another, and there’s a part of you…

Well. You don’t want to interrupt, not when there are so many people all eager to give him their best, but you haven’t seen him in almost a week and you were just looking forward to wishing him a happy birthday.

One of the programmers spots you and claims your attention from several feet away, rushing to finish chewing a bite of food as she crosses the room to reach you. “I’ve been looking for you! I brought that remote you asked me to program, I think I’ve finally gotten all of the kinks sorted out.”

Your eyes widen eagerly. The remote in question is the reason that one of your projects has been on hold for several days, so it’s _great news_ to have it back, and you say as much. “That’s excellent, thank you!”

And while you don’t say as much, it’s something of a relief to have an excuse to clear out of the party for a few minutes while you go and put the remote away. _Not_ because you look over and yet again see Marcus preoccupied with someone new. No. It’s really, really not.

The lights in the lab are on low power when you arrive, as they always are when no one is actively working in there. You kind of like it this way, quiet and mostly dark. Sometimes, when you’re the only one working, you even leave the lights off, just to give your brain a different sort of environment to work in.

Reaching your work bench, you stoop down and open the cabinet beneath the table so that you can tuck the remote away. Part of you itches to get to it right now, but you know that your supervisor left his stuff in his office, and he’ll chastise the hell out of you if he comes back for it and discovers you working when you’re supposed to be at the party.

“Don’t tell me things out there are so boring you had to come back to work.”

You jolt up at once, but it’s not your supervisor who’s caught you in here—it’s Marcus. He’s leaning against the doorjamb, arms crossed and watching you with raised eyebrows.

“No, no, I just… I had to put something away,” you tell him, your tone apologetic. It’s an afterthought when your eyes widen and you say, “Happy birthday, by the way.”

“Thanks.” He smiles easily as he walks further into the room. His eyes are skirting over the surfaces and the walls, taking in all of the half-finished projects that are on tables and shut away in cages. “I don’t get to see this side of hero work very often. I never really wanted much fancy tech even when I was out in the field.”

“Just you and your katanas,” you offer softly. A large photo of precisely that adorned the wall in the great hall in honor of his birthday—Marcus Moreno at the height of his time in the Heroics, wielding those swords.

He hums to himself. He’s reached the work bench across from you, and he leans his elbows on the surface, looking up at you. “That’s such a different version of me, it’s a little weird to think about. The me that ran into danger with two flimsy pieces of metal, I mean.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean.”

Something is hanging in the air that you can’t quite articulate, although it’s got your heart beating faster.

Or rather, you _can_ articulate it: it’s the _Marcus Moreno left his birthday party to follow you to the engineering lab_ of it all. That’s what’s hanging in the air. But you’re not sure whether he’s going to comment on it. Whether either of you should.

“So you weren’t coming back here to work, but as the birthday boy, I think it’s well within my rights to ask why I had to follow you to your lab just to get your birthday wishes.”

“I was getting around to it,” you hedge. There they are again—his raised eyebrows. “There’s just a lot of people out there. Every time I had a free moment, you were busy.”

Marcus waves this off at once. “You could’ve interrupted.”

Lurking beneath that sentiment… _he wanted you to interrupt_. Marcus Moreno, being celebrated by the entire organization, wanted you to come over and wish him a happy birthday.

You open your mouth to speak, but before you can say anything, his gaze drifts to your work bench. A frown immediately crosses his features and he leans over, reaching for something in the corner of your bench where you keep a few extra pencils and erasers, a coffee cup, and—

“Is this from that day a few months ago?” he asks. Holding up that stupid little ball of metal.

Not stupid. It’s just that you’d told yourself that it was stupid to hold onto it. Stupid to keep it out on your bench instead of just tossing it into a drawer, since you did insist on keeping it.

And Marcus must already know what it is, you know he must, but you tell him anyway. “Yeah.”

“Cool.” He says it to the ball, more than to you, a smile tugging at his lips. The cutest smile. He settles it back down where he found it before looking up at you with a very serious expression. “Do you want to get out of here?”

You try not to feel disappointed when you say, “Oh, yeah, we probably should get back out there.”

“No, sorry, I should’ve—” Marcus shakes his head and laughs absently at himself. “I meant get away from headquarters. Maybe walk over to Al’s?”

 _Oh_.

“Won’t people miss you?” you ask. But you can feel the way you’re smiling.

It doesn’t escape Marcus’s notice, either, how half-hearted your protest sounds—his own smile grows wider as he shrugs. “I’m always on call for the Heroics. I think I can sneak out of my own birthday party a little early for donuts and coffee. If… if you want.” The way that he qualifies the offer last-minute makes your stomach flip; is he nervous?

To think that you make Marcus Moreno nervous.

“I’m not sure I’ll be able to stomach a donut after all of the food at the party.”

Marcus nods seriously, making a great show of thinking through this dilemma that you’ve posed. “I guess we’ll have to be there for a few hours, then. Long enough to digest and get hungry again.”

You bite your lip—bite back a grin. “If we must.”

Marcus leads you through an emergency exit far from the festivities, grabbing your hand to pull you outside before there’s time for the open door to trigger the alarm, and he doesn’t let go.


End file.
